The next entry revealed yet another pseudo-legendary/apex variant, and it happened to be another Godzilla contender. Entry 395 showed the picture of a rock/electric Tyranitar variant that looked only slightly different from the regular one due to two color differences. The scales covering its belly were (lemon) yellow instead of gray, and the scales inside the holes in its green armor were (lime) green instead of black. It was an overall small change, but it was enough to show that they were different.
The ensuing entry actually ended up being the last one, and it was a very interesting one as well. It was the only member of the second group that had a distinct species name, which showed that it was not just a variant, but a new/third distinct evolution for Kirlia. Gardelade was a fairy/fighting type that looked like a very cool mix between Gardevoir and Gallade. In fact, it looked more like a mix between a Mega Gardevoir and a Mega Gallade rather than the normal pair, though it had a closer resemblance to Gardevoir than it did to Gallade.
It was also interesting to note that Gardelade's fairy/fighting typing took the fairy type from Gardevoir's psychic/fairy typing as well as the fighting type from Gallade's psychic/fighting typing, and in the process, it actually discarded the psychic typing that all members of the line had. Interesting type combination aside, I believed that Gardelade was most likely a superior evolution compared to both Gardevoir as well as Gallade since it combined elements from both, and of their mega forms at that.
I definitely loved its look especially the second picture in which Gardelade apparently detached its arm-blades and combined them into a dual-blade, kind of like those double-bladed lightstaffs/sabers. I was really hoping that there was no lineage restriction for this evolution since I would love to get one for myself even if I had to acquire a high-potential Kirlia for it and do some convoluted stuff to get it to evolve to Gardelade.
Nonetheless, I was frankly surprised that Gardelade's entry was the last one since I had seen nothing that could be seen as the major legendaries of Paldea. I mean, there were those 4 Pokemon that could have been minor legendaries, but it appeared Paldea had no records of any new/unknown major legendary Pokemon. I guess it was possible that no legendaries of that caliber passed by Paldea or stayed there for a period of time during the last 3.5 thousand or so years since humans made landfall there.
Anyway, after confirming that there were no further entries, I left my second thought stream to actually read through the index entries while I focused back on my surroundings, which made me realize that everyone was staring at me. When I said everyone, I meant that literally since it appeared that the ghosts had come back up while I was busy checking the Paldean Pokemon Index. I could not help but ask why they were staring at me like that, with some of them looking a bit awkward no less. Mothra/Butterfree had to chuckle at that before she told me that the ghosts had resurfaced nearly 20 minutes ago, but everyone chose to silently wait when they noticed that I was seriously staring into the air as if I was preoccupied/thinking hard about something.
They ended up watching as I seemingly seriously pondered something while my face occasionally underwent some humorous changes, which had her, Hades/Gengar, and the others of our group laugh but left the ghosts not knowing how to react. It left them in a somewhat awkward position, and once Mothra said that I could not help but feel a bit embarrassed that everyone got to witness some kind of face cinema while I went through the Paldean PokeDex.
I did what all big leaders did in situations like this; I acted as if nothing happened and diverted the topic along with everyone's attention by asking if they managed to find what I was looking for. There was a moment of silence following my question, which was broken by Golurk reporting that the 151st Ghost quartet managed to find something that might be what I was looking for. According to Golurk, one of the ghosts came across an area of sand that they couldn't phase through, and after failing to probe the half-domed area, it called the rest of its team for help, one of which happened to be a (high) dark gold Runerigus.
Yet, they failed to probe the area as well, so they first chose to finish their patrol instead of trying to force things since they did not want to risk damaging anything. They ended up reporting their findings along with everyone else, and their group ended up being the only group that discovered something that screamed "This is it". However, even though they found what they were assuming was what I wanted, they chose to wait for me to stop ruminating to ask me what I wanted to do next. Mothra mirthfully added that none of them expected me to be distracted for so long.
I chose to selectively ignore her teasing and pondered what to do. I focused on the leading Golurk and asked him to go down together with the leading Cofagrigus to probe the domed area to see if they could find out what was inside. If they failed to look inside, I asked them to see if they could manipulate the sand around the domed area to move the sealed patch to the surface so that I could take a look at it and decide on our next move.
Golurk and Cofagrigus saluted before diving down to the spot their subordinates described. A few minutes later there was some slight rumbling before a block of hardened sand surfaced beneath the sand, followed by Golurk and Cofagrigus who reported that they failed to pass the defenses of the seal and thus brought the whole thing up just as I ordered. I poked the sand block but it felt more like a block of steel instead due to how hard the surface was.
I then tried to see if I could probe it with either my aura or psionic senses but neither managed to pass through the sand shell. Neither did my seismic/earth sense for that matter, though that one had been more of a what-if on my part really. Seeing how my probing failed I told the five platinum ghosts to surround the dome and examine/probe it carefully to see if they could crack its defenses without using brute force since there was a very high chance that it would in the process stop functioning at least and get damaged at worst, which would go against the reason I wanted to crack it open in the first place.
Upon hearing my request/order the platinum ghosts nodded and directly went to work under the watchful eyes of everyone else. We saw them take turns to probe the whole sand dome before they began to do smaller individual probes targeting different areas of the dome. This went on for a few minutes before we saw the quintet huddle together following which they began to slowly and carefully overlay their probes, probably in an effort to breach the defenses or maybe to get more details. Either way, they continued for a few more minutes before they stopped and moved in front of me.
Golurk was the one who stepped forward and somewhat reluctantly shared that they failed to bypass the dome's defenses. It confidently declared that it could likely break the defense if it exerted some effort and that the Cofigrigus or Runegiris could do the same if they worked together, but it also admitted that breaking the defenses using brute force like that would likely damage the seals since there was a very high chance that the defense seals were purposefully integrated with the rest of the seals for just that purpose.
I nodded at that since what I had learned about seals during my time researching them for my ball crafting told me that precautions like that were pretty basic procedures all seal experts/masters used. Regardless, I asked Golurk if they had learned anything that could help us break the defense mechanism or anything else of interest, and Golurk first shook its head before nodding. It admitted that none of them would be able to open the dome without causing some damage, though it admitted that Big Boss Ceruledge might be able to crack it open while ensuring the least amount of physical damage, though the seal array itself would probably still get messed up.
Still, Golurk followed up by announcing that the dome was still gathering spectral energy, along with to a smaller degree "emotional energy" as well as "life force", and that they had analyzed the incoming energy flow along with the entry points on the dome and determined 8 channels that were connected to the dome. I was not surprised when Golurk said that each "channel" was in one of the eight cardinal directions with us being the core. It made sense that a single dome alone was not enough or at least not efficient enough, so I could easily accept that there was apparently a whole array involved.
It was a no brainer really, so I sent Golurk, the other sub-bosses, and three of the strongest (high) dark gold Golurk each with with 3 (high) dark gold ghosts as support towards one of the 8 sources that had to be at the end of the channel connection to the core dome/seal in front of us. I told them to dig it out and drag it over regardless of whether the linked object was another seal dome or some kind of other object. The platinum ghosts and the chosen (high) dark gold stage ghosts saluted before heading toward their targets under the envious eyes of the rest of the ghosts.
While we were waiting for their return, Mothra could finally no longer contain her curiosity and asked me why I had spaced out to that extent. I saw and felt the others perk up at her question, obviously just as curious as her, so I told them that Golurks description had made me remember some of the books I had memorized and stored inside my mind which seemed to have some information on those Pokemon, so I focused on my mind to go over the stored texts since I had not really bothered reading them until now since I had stored way too many books and documents inside my mind/memories just in case I needed it at some point.
When Mothra and co heard that they were quite excited and Hades asked me to show them what the new ghosts actually looked like, so I used the sand around us to make life-size copies/models of Greavard, Hounstone, Bramblin, and Brambleghast. My Pokemon circled the models curiously before thanking me for showing them what the 4 Pokemon looked like. Seeing how I had gone and created some sand models, Mothra went ahead and requested that I create some more sand models to entertain them while we waited for the ghost squads to return.
She started things off by asking me to create a model of herself stepping on a Hydreigon, which had Hades request one of himself sitting on a Malamar as soon as I was done with Mothra's sand model. Seb/Nidoking went next and asked for a model showcasing him along with his sister leaning against a tree with relaxed smiles. Gaia/Nidoqueen approved and I had to smile at Seb's request since it was a bit of fresh air compared to the usual battle scene or victory models I made. I felt the squads returning before I was done with the Nido model, but they silently waited and I didn't turn around to address them before I finished what I started.
Only once the model was complete and Seb, as well as Gaia, had a few moments to appreciate it did I turn around to face Golurk and the others. I saw that they had dragged along 8 smaller domes similar to the one we had already unearthed and thanked them for doing their part. Seeing the domes set around the core dome I asked Golurk and the other platinum ghosts to check them to see if they would have better luck with the smaller domes, but after they spent nearly 20 minutes checking each one of the eight sand domes, they regretfully admitted that the defenses were just as tight as the bigger one.
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